After saying yes to running the DSCC, Bennet gets Finance committee

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet will serve on the Senate Finance Committee in the next Congress. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)

WASHINGTON — Sen. Michael Bennet will get a seat on the venerable Senate Finance Committee as a favor for being the Democratic party’s top fundraising dog for the next two years.

Bennet, a freshman elected to his seat in 2010, was granted the committee assignment after saying yes to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to running the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee last week.

In that job, he’ll be expected to raise at least $100 million to help elect and re-elect Senate Democrats — including Mark Udall — in 2014.

There are at least two outgoing Democrats on the Committee, Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, that makes room for a new member.

Bennet is a member of the “Gang of Eight” — a group of Republicans and Democrats trying to work on the country’s fiscal crises. He will give up spots on Banking and Aging committees to make room in his schedule for his new post. He will continue to serve on the Health, Education, Labor, Pensions Committee and Agriculture Committee.

Sen. Udall will keep his same committee assignments this next Congress, including Energy, Armed Services and Intelligence.

Michael Bennet cost Denver Public Schools tens of millions of dollars by persuading DPS that they should buy a complex package of financial derivatives even though the problems in the credit markets were widely known at the time:

What’s that – you didn’t hear about this story when it broke during Bennet’s reelection campaign in the fall of 2008? That’s because the Denver Post didn’t report it until several days after the story broke and when they did finally report it they kept it off of the front page.

Sir Reebral

Oh Great. Bennet is a “Rubber Stamp” for all of 0bama’s big spending bills. He can show the Finance Committee how to spend TRILLIONs without reading the bill first.

DeltaDude

Wonderful! Bennet and Udall voted to reinstate Bernanke and what was the result? Bernanke took his banking buddies bad loans and transferred to the U.S. public. It looks like Bernanke is about to do the same trick again. What a total bunch of Bozos. Can’t we some how get rid of these clowns?

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040385686 Henk Vandenbergh

let’s say it nicely: millions of college-age students clicked ‘like’ for Obama on last month’s ballot, not realizing that it is THEY that are expected to pay back the trillions of dollars Obama spent to be ‘liked’. The irony.

Anonymous

A sad waste of an important committee seat.

Dave

What a dope…

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1040385686 Henk Vandenbergh

As reward for raising a couple of thousand in election funds he now gets to spend billions. Hold on to your wallets.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.